Sick Baby Boy

Jason finished practice yesterday afternoon - to be off 4 days!! - and we frantically finished cleaning the house (b/c one of my favorite pleasures in life is returning from vacation to a clean house!), wrapped a remaining 30-something gifts that were neglected to be wrapped three weeks ago, packed for three, and loaded up the car to head to Crossett for Holidays Part 1...we spend now-24th at Jason's family's house and then drive back Christmas Eve night to wake up Christmas morning in our own house before spending Christmas day/night with my family in Siloam.
In all the chaos of preparing to leave on the trip, I noticed Lincoln's eyes looking bloodshot and glassy. I made a comment about it to Jason and in a mother's hunch, grabbed all the medicines (tylenol, day cough suppressant, night cough suppressant with coedine, motrin, etc...), threw them in a baggy "just in case".
When we arrived in Crossett around 11:00pm, we arrived with a sickly baby who had fluid dripping out his eyes, snot-filled nose, bright red, glassy eyes, and a pitiful cry. Oh crap. So I dug into the medicine bag, gave appropriate dosages and we attempted to put him to bed. The "attempt" failed. Lincoln, who never has a problem going to sleep - screamed frantically when we put him down, to the point where he was over-emotional and had a hard time catching his breath - the heartbreaking cry. Jason and I looked at each other and knew something wasn't right. We let him sleep in the bed with us the whole night (something we've never done) and he snuggled between us and tried to get some some sleep (but had many coughing attacks throughout the night).
This morning, he woke up smiling, but his eyes looked worse than yesterday. Both of us agreed we needed to get him into a doctor today because this felt different than his previous occasional cold/sinus stuff. Jason's mom worked some magic with doctors she knows in town and got us in within 30 minutes. The doctor wanted to do x-rays, and after about 2 hours of tests and exams, the doctor concluded he had pneumonia - bad and prominent. I felt my eyes well up with tears but was SO thankful we were able to get him to a doctor! They checked his temp for the 2nd time, and it had gone up in the last 20 minutes. They sent us over to the hospital because they wanted to do a blood culture on him. When we got there, the nurse saw the order and her eyes got a sad glaze on them like "I don't wanna do this to this poor child!" and I knew I wouldn't be able to be in there with him while they drew blood without losing it. So Jason and his mom took him to get his blood drawn while I left the room in tears. I actually went outside because I knew I would start crying if I heard him. He then had to get a shot of his first rounds of anti-biotics (which I also could not be there on), but I heard him cry this time. I've always been okay with him getting shots in the past, but this time I think it was so hard because he looked so pitiful, it was Christmas, and he's never had this before. Today broke my heart. But I am so thankful God provided confident, immediate care for Lincoln today and that Jason and I trusted our instincts to take him in.
He's now sleeping soundly in the bedroom - with tons of medicines healing his little body - and his mommy praying he feels better soon! The amazing doctor we saw is going to see him on the 24th to make sure he is getting better and approve us to travel back to Siloam later that night (if he's not better, he'll have to be admitted - on Christmas DAY!).
In funny news - the little sucker weighs a whopping 26 pounds now! My little darling. And even in the midst of all this junk, he has been in good spirits and still has his little playful heart. :) Hopefully some pictures of a healthy little man are soon to follow tomorrow!!!!